Steve, for what it's worth (not much really) I ran into a guy at the range once who had one, he was getting 3040fps out of a 24" barrel with 140 grain bullets - he was chronying his loads at the time. It was a rechambered Remington 700 XCR.

The 7mm-08 Ackley Improved has been very popular with us for many years. Most importantly, it provides high end .280 Remington performance in a short action receiver. Most of our 7mm-08 Imp. rifles have a fairly short barrel, usually no longer than 20”, yet we get an honest 3050 f.p.s. with a 140 gr. bullet, and 3150 feet per second with a 120 gr. The original .308 case has been transformed into many kinds of nice cartridges. I believe that the 7mm-08 Ackley Improved is at the top of the heap. We have tuned several for 160 gr. Nosler Partitions for African hunts and hear nothing but praise for their performance. Bullets striking animals at 100 to 200 yards at 7mm-08 velocities will show perfect performance every time. Perfect for whitetail, it is one wildcat that deserved to be born! I like its performance, which is best with a 20” barrel.

I am in the process of organising a custom build for my general purpose hunting rifle (The .338 Edge is almost finished)

Currently use standard 7mm08 but was looking at the Ackley version with the hope of pushing a 140 TTSX at around 3000fps

Any advice on loads or whether you think its worth changing to AI would be much appreciated

Rgds, Steve

I am a big fan of the 7/08 and feel it is in a leage of it's on. So when I started thinking of more
I went to the 7/08x40 (AI) and was disappointed with the amount of performance increase.

With the 140s the AI would only best the 7/08 buy 75 ft/sec and the 120 loads were only
30 to 50 ft/sec morethan the 7/08 ( The varget load with the 120gr NBT of 45.o grs achieves
3150 ft/sec average velocity in the 7/08.

I'm not knocking the 7/08x40(AI) but it was a lot of trouble to get dies and then to fire form
brass.

So I re chambered the rifle In 7mm WSM and it did what I wanted 3300+ ft/sec with a 140 gr
Accubond in the 23" barrel.

If you are planning a new build in 7mm and a short action this is what I would recommend and
you could keep the 7/08 and even Elk Hunt with the 7mm WSM and 160+gr bullets @ 3000
ft/sec .

You would have to open a standard bolt face up if that's what you have for a don-er but that's
no biggie.

And if I haven't talked you out of a 7/08x40 I have 100rds of fire formed once fired brass and a
set of dies for sale for it.